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Monthly Archives: August 2013

In the field of management, many decisions are to be taken at short notice, even though they may have far reaching effects subsequently. As a matter of fact, the decisions should be based on data, reports, results of surveys and logical analysis thereof. There are some mathematical/statistical techniques available. Some top management personnel make use of these techniques. But still many use their intuition. Based on his experience, the top person has a feeling about the whole problem and its consequences, which helps him to take a decision, either way. This is a quick method for taking decisions and many persons prefer it. Some of the top persons may even get the decision corroborated by some sort of study for that problem, based on which they may allow earlier decision to continue or to even modify it. This saves lot of time for achieving progress. The success of taking such decision making is based on the confidence of the top management. The mind of the top management should be in a balanced and stable condition, so that even with multifarious, difficult and varying situations, the scenario can be visualized rightly. No doubt there is uncertainty associated with intuition. For that matter, uncertainty in some manner is always associated with many things and events. If we are free of stress or at least having reduced stresses, we are more likely to see the correct path and our decisions are likely to be right in the long run. Best way is logical analysis. The latter sometimes causes diversion due to information overload. A combination of the two is the next best solution. If accuracy of past decisions, based on intuition is good, it is advisable to go ahead similarly and in the bargain, continue to build up the confidence to help in taking decisions in future, in similar or newer situations.

There was an organization, to which young educated persons used to be attracted to join, but will get disillusioned soon after joining, and would then like to leave for better pastures elsewhere. These could be the competitive examinations, entrepreneurship or going overseas. It appeared that it was like stop-gap arrangement for such persons. But there were several other persons of medium and higher age group, who could not leave and had to serve there only and retire from there. Thus the rate of such persons leaving the organization was high. The organization was also hard put to stress, due to the frequent recruiting procedures, their training and then their leaving arrangements, causing more problems and vacuum than help and assistance from them Apart from this, there was another problem. There was a regular tradition of welcoming a new employee and giving farewell to a retiring, transferring or leaving employee. As a result, there were too many farewell functions for such young persons, leaving the organization. Besides increasing the organization load, it also increased the expenditure of such functions due to the involvement of expenses for gift, High Tea etc. As these expenses were met by contributions from the existing employees, at one stage, some bickering were also heard in whispering voices. Then a surprise was created when one such young person leaving the organization, quietly offered to host the High Tea, thus offsetting some amount from the total budget, which remained mainly for the gift for the outgoing employee. This welcome gesture was appreciated by everyone and then adopted as a regular measure. This was an innovative and creative method of sharing the expenses and resolving, not a problem but strained views or feelings.

Customer is said to be the King. If he is not satisfied in any way, he may not visit your shop or patronize your product and create & spread a bad image by word of mouth. Normally customers go to the nearest or nearby shops for purchases. The customers who are nearby may patronize your business. Therefore, automatically one loses several but not all customers, living in far off places. Generally, it has been experienced that locating some particular item(s) and billing of the items, take a lot of time in the malls. Also, some billing counters are kept closed as per requirement, some are closed in between, when people are even waiting in the queue. So a person wanting to purchase 1 or 2 items feels discouraged to go to a mall. He prefers to go to an owner managed small shop for quick disposal. The malls do not have personal touch. They do not recognize their loyal customers by face. A small shop owner welcomes his customers with a smile and sometimes there is a friendly chat even. Therefore, malls may lose such sensitive customers. Customers want honest dealings only & no cheating at all. But in some shops, to avoid financial loss to the owners, some old items are got repacked & sold out, & thus the safety of the customers is thrown to the winds. Some products do not even carry expiry dates. Sometimes a customer is not told about the product expiry date and he gets totally misled. When there is carelessness in dealings, the PDC’s are not honoured & the customers are taken for a ride (when a customer has to visit several times to collect the item), the customers will not go to such shops in future. The businessmen sometimes forget that they can earn more by ensuring periodic visits of the customers & not by just one first visit only. The vegetables & fruits are daily use items, for which the Customers will go to those shops only, which supply quality goods & are easily approachable. When a vendor comes in the lane of the house & his quality and dealings are good, he will get customers. Far off places will not be patronized.

A business which forces customers to visit again, as per the desire of the shop owner, will lose the customers. Some businessmen may give some small discounts for future visits, with no obvious major advantages to the customers, thinking that these will make them come again. But the matter is not so simple. There are many factors which determine such repeat visits of the customers. Many times knowingly and sometimes unknowingly, small quantity of poor quality product is mixed or given alongside, without customer’s knowledge. When it is found after reaching home, neither the product is exchanged nor the mistake is acknowledged. This leads to loss of customers. I purchased a tube from a medical shop and next day I wanted to return it and buy something else in exchange. The shop keeper refused and said that I might have taken out some medicine from inside the tube, as the tube is made of plastic. As a matter of fact I had not done so & had no intentions of doing anything like that. From then on, I do not go to his shop at all. I will go without the medicine rather than go to his shop. There is one grocery shop, which charges exactly the MRP amount printed on the product, though almost all others give some rebate to the customers, which may be around 5 %. While not agreeing for any amount of rebate, he told me in an arrogant manner to take the item or leave it. I have stopped going there too. Even for some normal quality products, when a customer wants to exchange to some other piece of the same product or some other product, somewhere it is not allowed or there are stringent and difficult rules and timings or the customer is made to wait for a long time for getting attention, causing inconvenience to him. In such cases also, the business loses the customers.